Julie Marson: House of Commons Business and Trade Committee role for Bishop’s Stortford MP
Bishop’s Stortford’s Conservative MP Julie Marson has a new House of Commons role following her decision to quit as a Government assistant whip.
The parliamentary record shows that on December 11 she replaced her constituency neighbour, Hitchin and Harpenden Tory MP Bim Afolami, as a member of the Business and Trade Committee. He has been promoted to Economic Secretary at the Treasury. Mrs Marson also joins the Business and Trade Sub-Committee on National Security and Investment.
The 11-strong committee’s remit is to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Department for Business and Trade, headed by Secretary of State and Saffron Walden MP Kemi Badenoch. It is chaired by Birmingham Labour MP Liam Byrne, who did his A-levels at Herts and Essex High School in Stortford after attending Burnt Mill School in Harlow.
The committee’s current business includes scrutinising the performance of investment zones and freeports and hearing evidence on export-led growth.
Although Mrs Marson’s UK Parliament page still lists her as an assistant whip, she used social media on November 14 to announce her decision to step down.
Using her X (formerly Twitter) account she published her letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, in which she told him: “Further to my conversation with the chief whip yesterday, I would like to confirm that I will step down from the Whips Office for the personal reasons we discussed.”
At the time, the Indie asked Mrs Marson to expand on that statement for her constituents and explain her decision, but she did not respond.
Her decision ended her second stint in the Whips Office. The Brexiter was first appointed by disgraced Prime Minister Boris Johnson on July 8 last year following the mass resignations that precipitated his departure from office. He also made Mrs Marson – whose pet dog, a blonde cockapoo, is called Boris – a junior minister at the Department for Work and Pensions.
Liz Truss’s arrival in 10 Downing Street signalled a brief departure from Government for Mrs Marson when she was sacked from both roles by September 20.
She received £4,479 in redundancy money for 74 days’ work but was back in office just five weeks later when, according to her UK Parliament biography, by October 27 new PM Mr Sunak had reappointed her as assistant whip.
Earlier this year, Mrs Marson forced a ballot of rank-and-file members after the Hertford & Stortford Conservative Association executive rejected her automatic readoption as their candidate for the next General Election.
There has been further speculation about her parliamentary future after she was “unable to be in Westminster” for a crunch vote on the Government’s emergency Rwanda bill.
The Prime Minister faced a Tory rebellion, and in her statement about her absence, Mrs Marson did not say how she would have voted, saying only she “fully supports” Sunak’s plan to “stop the boats”.
Barking-born Mrs Marson, 58 – whose family home is 100 miles from Stortford on the Kent coast and who has a flat in Sawbridgeworth – is a policeman's daughter who was educated at Woodford County High School for Girls in Essex and Downing College, Cambridge. Before entering politics, the married mother of one worked in corporate banking for NatWest.
